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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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236
BOOK I.
MARCO POLO
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Our traveller says that Tenduc had been the seat of Aung Khan's sovereignty ; he has already said that it had been the scene of his final defeat, and he tells us that it
was still the residence of his descendants in their reduced state. To the last piece of information he can speak as a witness, and he is corroborated by other evidence ; but the second statement we have seen to be almost certainly erroneous ; about the first we cannot speak positively.
Klaproth pointed out the true position of Tendue in the vicinity of the great northern bend of the Ilwang-Ho, quoting Chinese authorities to show that Thianté or
Thianté-Kiun was the name of a district or group of towns to the north of that bend, a name which he supposes to be the original of Polo's Tenduc. The general position entirely agrees with Marco's indications ; it lies on his way eastward from Tangut towards Chagannor, and Shangtu (see eh. lx., lxi.), whilst in a later passage (Bk. II. eh. lxiv. ), he speaks of the Caramoran or Ilwang-Ho in its lower course, as " coming from the lands of Prester John."
M. Pauthier finds severe fault with Klaproth's identification of the name Tenduc with the Thianté of the Chinese, belonging to a city which had been destroyed 300
years before, whilst he himself will have that name to be a corruption of Tatliung. The latter is still the name of a city and Fu of northern Shansi, but in Mongol time its circle of administration extended beyond the Chinese wall, and embraced territory on the left of the Hwang-Ho, being in fact the first Lu, or circle, entered on leaving Tangut, and therefore, Pauthier urges, the " Kingdom of Tanduc " of our text.
I find it hard to believe that Marco could get no nearer TATHUNG than in the form of Tanduc or Tenduc. The origin of the last may have been some Mongol
name, not recovered. But it is at least conceivable that a name based on the old
Thianté-Kiun might have been retained among the Tartars, from whom, and not from the Chinese, Polo took his nomenclature. Thianté had been, according to Pauthier's
own quotations, the military post of Tathuná-; Klaproth cites a Chinese author of the Mongol era, who describes the Hwang-Ho as passing through the territory of the ancient Chinese city of Thianté; and Pauthier's own quotation from the Modern Imperial Geography seems to imply that a place in that territory was recently known as Fung-chau-Thianté-Kiun.
In the absence of preciser indications, it is reasonable to suppose that the Plain of Tenduc, with its numerous towns and villages, was the extensive and well-cultivated
plain which stretches from the Ilwang- H o, past the city of Kuku-Khotan, or " Blue
Town." This tract abounds in the remains of cities attributed to the Mongol era. And it is not improbable that the city of Tendue was Kuku-Khotan itself, now called
by the Chinese Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, but which was known to them in the Middle Ages
as Tsing-chan, and to which we find the Kin Emperor of Northern China sending an envoy in 1210 to demand tribute from Chinghiz. The city is still an important mart
and a centre of Lamaitic Buddhism, being the residence of a hhutukhtu, or personage combining the characters of cardinal and voluntarily re-incarnate saint, as well as the site of five great convents and fifteen smaller ones. Gerbillon notes that Kuku Khotan had been a place of great trade and population during the Mongol Dynasty.
[The following evidence shows, I think, that we must look for the city of Tenduc to Tou Ch'eng or Toto Ch'eng, called 7oá to or Tokto by the Mongols. Mr. Rockhill (Diary, 18) passed through this place, and 5 li south of it, reached on the Yellow River, Ho-k'ou (in Chinese) or Dugus or Dugei (in Mongol). Gerbillon speaks of Toto in his sixth voyage in Tartary. (Du Halde, IV. 345.) Mr. Rockhill adds that he cannot but think that Yule overlooked the existence cf Togto when he identified Kwei-hwa Ch'eng with Tenduc. Tou Ch'eng is two days' march west of Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, " On the loess hill behind this place are the ruins of a large camp, Orch'eng, in all likelihood the site of the old town" (l.c. 18). M. Bonin (J. As. XV. 1900, 5S9) shares Mr. Rockhill's opinion. From Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, M. Bonin went by the valley of the Hei Shui River to the Hwang Ho ; at the junction of the t" o rivers stands the village of Ho-k'au (Ho-k'ou), south of the small town To Ch'eng, sur-
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